Forum Guidelines (Updated May, 2018)

ON-LINE PEER SUPPORT

The information on this site is provided by fellow survivors and is intended for support purposes. This website is not intended to treat, diagnose or replace the advice, or treatment, of a licensed therapist. It is important to understand that isurvive.org is a community of people providing information, support and the opportunity to share experiences helpful to others. The information on our site comes from individuals who are NOT medical or psychological professionals of any sort.

Online resources are not meant to and cannot replace the specialised training and professional judgement of a health care or mental health care professional. You should consult your doctor, therapist or other healthcare professional if you have any questions about your personal health or psychological needs before implementing or making changes in any treatment.

Mandatory reporting

As an anonymous site our priority is to provide a safe forum – we have extremely limited ability to act in a meaningful way should we suspect that a minor may be in danger. Site leadership would attempt to do what they could within their limited means.

Please review the documents if you have not already done so before continuing to access isurvive.org and check our Disclaimers and Conditions of Use Page and Forum Announcements regularly for any updates.

CONDUCT ON THE FORUMS

Good Participation Skills
We keep this discussion space productive by treating other participants appropriately. Be gentle with each other. Realise that every person who comes here has been injured or bruised, or is sensitive to those who are. Be cautious about accusations, or expressions of rage, at fellow participants. Use “I” statements. Speak from your own experience. Speak from your heart. This is the most powerful and influential way to make your point. Please be careful using capitals, bold or underlining when “talking”/typing. This is seen as yelling or screaming at those reading and could hurt, or trigger, a fellow Member. If you need to express yourself by yelling/screaming please use CAPS cautiously. Moderators may remove any inappropriate posts or articles. This includes abusive posts or other disruptive items.

Do not under any circumstances use our Website to discuss another Member.

Research and Advertising
The isurvive site is not under any circumstances to be used to promote or advertise any goods or services to other members nor is its content available to be used for research (ie academic, journalistic, blogs, etc).

Suicidal Feelings
It is ok to discuss feelings ON suicide; however this is not the place for suicide notes, threats or requests for emergency assistance. This is the place to discuss your feelings, no matter how dark or despairing. Share what you need to share and get help when you need help from your local service providers.

Account Identities
When posting about past abuse we consider anonymity very important. It is not permissible to register twice under different identities, unless with specific permission from the Director. If this is done without permission, one or both accounts may be removed from isurvive.org.

Active Email Account
Members must maintain an active email account. Email changes can be made by contacting the Director or in the “User Control Panel” after logging into the forum.

Changing Usernames
Choosing an anonymous username is the responsibility of the Member. Usernames can only be changed under extraordinary circumstances such as abusers or family discovering your posts and with the permission of the Director. To request such a change, contact the Director at jonesy@isurvive.org. Usernames cannot be changed, for example, if you decide you do not “like” your username or if you have chosen the same username you use on another site.

Reading Announcements by the Director
It is very important to read posts that are made by the Director of isurvive.org. These posts contain important information and often require an acknowledgement. We request Members please state within these posts that they have read the Announcement.

Receiving and Responding to Emails sent by the Director
If there is a time that a Member receives an email from the Director, or Admin Staff, due to site guideline violations, or any other issue, and does not respond within 48 hours (especially if they are seen to be posting on the forums after the email has been sent), their account may be deactivated. If a Member can provide sufficient reason why they failed to respond, then their account may be reactivated.

Inactive Member Accounts
The Member list for isurvive.org is regularly reviewed. If an account has not been used in the 3 months from registration then it will be removed from the system. Members may be able to re-register if they make direct email contact with the Director.

Do Not Discuss Offenders Directlyisurvive.org is a forum for discussion and healing, and is not meant as a place to confront offenders.

Do not refer to offenders by name or provide specific information that might incriminate anyone, such as the city you live in or the city an offender lives in

Do not discuss details of unresolved offenses

Do not discuss specific information regarding illegal activities, crimes which have not been tried or crimes for which charges are pending

Breaking the Cycle
Understand that isurvive.org may accept survivors who have offended in their past and are now breaking the cycle of abuse. It is vital that these survivors produce evidence to show they are actively participating in therapy, in a sex offender treatment program and/or have other appropriate support systems in place. This information would be treated confidentially as per applicable laws. Any admissions of current abuse against a child, or adult, will result in immediate banning and appropriate notification to law enforcement authorities will be made.

Options for Avoiding Disrespectful Content
If your words are causing a Member harm and you are asked to refrain from using them, then you need to do one of the following:

Find another way to express yourself (use less triggering words)

Change the topic

Leave the thread/ chat or log-off

If you feel harmed by someone on our Website you can do the following:

Report the situation to the Moderator (if available)

In the forums, you can choose not to interact and respectfully ask for the same consideration from that person

Trigger Warningsisurvive.org uses three types of trigger warnings. They align with a traffic warning signal.

Whenever a member posts content, whether it is in response to a thread or starting a new topic, he or she must select one of three trigger indicators located at the top of the message box. Here are the options:

Red ST = Severe Triggers

Yellow MT = May Trigger

Green NT = No Triggers

You, as the member, should select which icon best suits the post. We ask you to take this responsibility seriously, as it helps ensure the well-being of those reading.

Please note that titles of posts should not contain any triggering content and, as a general guide;

NT should be used if you merely mention a triggering topic

MT should be used if you provide some detail

ST should be used if you provide graphic detail

The Moderators or Director may make a judgement call if they feel your trigger indicator needs amended and may post to say they have done so.

Visually impaired members should be able to take advantage of alt tags with the above system but if they simply inform the Director or admin staff, our team should be glad to discreetly adjust trigger warnings on their behalf.

Potential Triggers
Below is a list of common triggers; but please note this is a general list and be aware that what may not trigger one person may trigger another.

excessive use of profanity within a post (upwards of 3) merits a Red ST

While the Moderators and Director do their utmost to ensure posts are in the appropriate forums and with the appropriate trigger warning, members must take responsibility to ensure that they are emotionally in a place to read whichever posts they select.

isurvive.org recommends that if you are feeling vulnerable, you should refrain from reading any posts that have a yellow or red trigger warning until you are feeling more grounded.

If at any time a Member is unsure as to which trigger indicator to use, please contact the Director or ask the Moderator assigned to the specific forum for assistance.

If something you wish to discuss could be triggering, please draw it to the attention of those participating in the discussion before continuing.

Double Posting
It is not acceptable to post the same post in two different forums. When you do this, it can make Members feel as though they need to respond more than once. It is also added work on the Director and the Moderators. Your post should be responded to in due time. Double posting includes summarising posts in a different forum. Double posting also refers to copying your own previous posts and re-posting them within new posts or threads; please use an internal isurvive link to an earlier post if necessary for reference (this is the only instance when including a URL is permissible).

Posting in Open Forum
Triggering posts can be put in Open Forum, but must be clearly marked. It is asked that Open Forum not be a “catch-all” for posts, as they can be responded to in the other forums. If a post is found to have content that best fits another forum, then the post may be moved and the Member notified by email.

Posting in the Appropriate Forums
It is the responsibility of each Member to ensure that their posts are made in the most appropriate forum. If necessary, posts will be moved and the Member notified by email. If a member is unsure where a post belongs the Director can be contacted at any time. Please be mindful that if a discussion is better suited for another forum, the Moderators or Director may move it. For example, if a discussion about sexual abuse changes to discussing ritual abuse, the topic may be split, and the posts regarding ritual abuse may be moved to the more appropriate forum. The Member whose post was moved should always be contacted by the Director to let him or her know.

Quoting Material
Do not quote the entire post of another person within your own when responding to other Members. Do not post text from other support sites, forums, blogs or email threads. Do not post, copy, save or distribute any material found on isurvive.org with the exception of your own personally written posts, which can be saved for your own personal reference.

Please keep copyright restrictions in mind when making any references to books, songs, articles, poetry or other pieces of material. Share only references or brief quotes that qualify under copyright and fair use laws. Limit your brief quotation to the minimum necessary to make your point and always include the full copyright references (author, title, publisher, year, page or artist, song, album, producer, year). This will also allow those interested to view an excerpt in it’s full copyrighted and protected context if they choose.

Editing Posts
It can be triggering for other Members when the content of a post is changed without any explanation. If you feel the need to edit your post, please write a few words at the bottom to explain why you have done so.

Deleting Posts
Do not delete any posts which have received a reply, as this can be unsettling for other Members. If posts need to be removed for reasons such as security or privacy, the Director or Administrative staff should be contacted and can assist members in the secure process.

Disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information
Do not reveal your identity. Your privacy and confidentiality are important. We strongly advise that you select a username completely unrelated to any other which you may already use elsewhere online or in real life. This is to help protect your privacy, as it is too easy to be linked to identifiable information, blog names or other places on the web or 3D life. Do not share your real name, address, city, telephone number, email or place of work to anyone in the isurvive.org community. Do not share specific details that would allow the reader to identify you, another person, place or specific instance of conduct.

Linking to External Content
Do not post external links to website addresses on the forums or in chat. Since we can’t guarantee the appropriateness of content or information on other websites, any links or URLs posted will be removed.

Reporting Issues
If you know of a problematic posting, add a report to the post for a moderator or contact the Director at jonesy@isurvive.org

Posting Images
It is understandable you may wish to share images of family, pets or other images that may be in support of yourself or another Member. However, because it is unknown what images may trigger someone, no images or image links are permitted on the site.

Red Font
It can be triggering for some members to view red font so please do not post or sign using the red font option.

Preventing Unauthorised Access
Always log yourself out of chat or your member account should you need to leave your computer for any length of time. It is vital that the only person using your login details is yourself. Failure to comply can result in an automatic suspension and may be reviewed by the Board of Directors.

Spouses, Partners and Family of Members
As a general rule, we do not believe it beneficiary for the spouse, partner or family of a Member to participate in isurvive.org. This can cause the survivor to no longer feel they have a safe place to share their past and cause hurt feelings in the relationship. Should you wish to explore this possibility then we ask for direct contact to be made with the Director. A stipulation would be that neither party ever post on each other’s threads. If either breaches this guideline, then one or both accounts may be suspended. Our Website should not be used to work through relationship issues.

SITE MODERATION

Role of Moderators
The moderators are available to help with individual or group problems. Should the need arise, you can either request intervention by posting for moderator assistance or email the Director at jonesy@isurvive.org. Moderators are not there as therapists or counsellors, their role is merely to support and help keep the website organised and productive. Moderators are not always online so can only respond to requests for assistance accordingly.

Terminating Discussions
If a Director, or Moderator, requests an issue to be dropped, a Member must comply immediately. The thread may be locked and should anyone choose to open another thread to continue the disagreement, then the Member in question may be suspended indefinitely. Such circumstances should be dealt with by the Director in private via email.

Discipline for Violations
Severe or excessive violations of these Terms and Conditions of Use may result in your immediate suspension without notice. However, under ordinary circumstances, if a Member violates any of these Terms and Conditions of Use in any way, the following will result:

The Director will contact you and you may be immediately suspended from the forum or chat room

A second violation will result in a second warning and a one-month suspension by the Director. Following this, it is your responsibility to contact the Director to have your access reinstated. A contract may be drawn up between yourself and the Director in order for you to continue to participate

If you violate any of our Terms or Conditions of Use for a third time, you will be permanently banned from the forum and chat room

The Board of Directors
The isurvive.org Board of Directors may be consulted by the Director regarding decisions over isurvive.org. If Members are dissatisfied with decisions made by the Director, they are free to forward their concerns to the Board via email (boardofdirectors@isurvive.org) at any time. They should be responded to as soon as is possible.